Lock & Key
by Dani Rae11109
Summary: Edward needs someone to help him in biology so he can stay on Western Washington University's baseball team. Bella agrees to help him, but has no idea what she's gotten herself into. Edward is hellbent on acing his test, but he's also hellbent on gaining her heart. Will she hand it over, or will she continue to keep it under lock and key? Drabble-fic, light. Rated M for a reason!
1. Chapter 1

_87%? Hell yeah! _

"What'd you get?" my friend Alice asks, trying to peer over at my biology exam score.

"A B plus, you?"

She smiles. "The same. You cheater."

We laugh because the teacher has A and B forms so that every other student has a different test.

I can hear my classmates behind me as they react to their test score.

"Shit man," a baseball player says. I recognize the voice. Trying not to listen, I glance down at my test to see what I missed. His voice is always the easiest for me to pick up on. Is it possible to find a male voice so sexy?

"Dude, I got a 72%!" James, another player, cheers.

I mentally shake my head. He sounds _way_ too proud of his score.

Alice leans over my shoulder to see my test. "Did you hear James?"

I laugh and look at her. Her inky hair has grown out to her chin. After we graduated high school, she chopped her hair off. She was able to spike it and pull it off, but she always resented it and claimed it was worst idea ever. "Yeah. I guess considering the effort he puts in, he should be proud. I think that's his best score yet."

I can see _him_ out of the corner of my eye, a hand in his auburn hair as he stares angrily at his test. It's difficult to ignore him. I try harder to.

My teacher walks out of his office and up to the podium. "Okay, now that everyone has their test, any questions?"

Mr. Cordero leads an active class. He can sometimes go all over the place, but he is so passionate about the subject, so knowledgeable, I always forgive him for giving me kinda shitty notes. I mean, he's an adorable little old man who loves to teach and loves to see his students learn. So when a classmate asks him a question and then it takes us off course, I excuse him.

I'm surprised when Alice hands me a note towards the end of class. She looks confused, so I quickly open it up.

_ Bella, I really need help with this class. You seem like the most approachable, so would you mind? Write down your number so I can text you. If you want. I really need to ace this class._

_ Edward Cullen_

What? I set the note down and shake my head. Most approachable?

He sits behind me, to the left, and I try not to notice that he sees my reaction and looks down at his notes.

Cordero ends the class and everyone gets up. As I'm gathering my things and waiting for Alice, I take note of the defeatist attitude of Edward Cullen's stance, I swallow my insecurity and shyness and walk up to him.

He looks up sharply, surprised. "Bella?"

I motion with my hand. "Give me your phone."

His lips stretch into an impossibly sexy grin. "Really?"

I nod. "Really. Give it up."

He hands me his iPhone and I try to ignore the way he fingers feel against mine. I type my number in quickly and hand it back to him. "I have to go to work, but feel free to text me later."

He nods. "Thank you so much. Seriously."

"No problem, Edward. See ya later," I say, turning away from him and catching up to Alice.

"What was that about?" she asks, staring back into the classroom as we walk out.

"Nothing. He just needs someone to help him with the class.

My phone twerps, and I look down at it.

_Biology Chick, huh?_

I can't help but smile. Fricken' Edward Cullen just texted me.

* * *

New story! Hopefully I'll be able to update like twice a week or so. Will stay drabble. This is my first drabble-fic, so we'll see how go's!

Review please :)


	2. Chapter 2

I arrive at work right on time. I work at the rec center at Western Washington University. After losing 50 pounds, I became fairly fit, and they loved that I have experience in the weight and cardio rooms.

I toss my bag and phone down in the office and pull my hair up. Basically all I do is stand around and wait for someone to ask for help.

I walk out and glance at all the regulars. Rose, my coworker and friend, nods me over. "Cuttin' it close, huh?"

"Sorry, I got caught in class," I explain, quickly pulling my hair up into a high ponytail.

She laughs. "It's cool. So, you know Emmett McCarty, the linebacker?"

I glance at her. Rose is gorgeous, with wheat blonde hair and cornflower blue eyes. She's tall, taller than me at around five nine, five ten, and as a volleyball player for WWU, she has a rocking body. "Yeah?"

She laughs again. "You missed it. He comes on over and tells me I need to teach him how to deadlift. As if he never did it before."

I crinkle my forehead. "What? Why?" I ask, glancing around and find someone squatting with the bar incorrectly. I quickly go over and fix their form before walking back to Rose. "Sorry. Why did he ask that? The guy can deadlift like 300 pounds."

She gives me a droll look. "Honey, he was coming onto me."

"Ohhhh, okay. Sorry. Continue." I am not familiar with flirting. I had one boy friend back in high school, but it only lasted, like, a month. And he slobbered.

"Bella-"

I roll my eyes, knowing where this is going. "I know, I know. I need a boy friend."

"Anyway, he is sexy as fuck! I'm not kidding. My mouth was watering. I made him try it with just the bar first, and he did everything he could to try and make it look like it was tough, but I knew better. I called him out on it and made him rep it out on max." She stops and fans herself with a well-manicured hand. "His max is 375."

"Holy crap!" I exclaim.

"I know." She smiles. "He wanted to take me to lunch but I told him I would only give him my number. Trying to play hard to get."

I shake my head at her. After losing 50 pounds, my confidence and self-esteem is better, but it's still not that great. I'm trying to work on it. Being shy does not help. And I have this ridiculous tendency to not make eye contact with guys and to not talk to them unless they come up to me first. It's a pretty bad habit.

A runner on the treadmill who can't get the machine to work distracts me and I sigh. Another boring day at work.

Alice and I grew up south of Bellingham in a small town called Forks, Washington with about 2,000 inhabitants. Being a small town, everyone knew everything and gossip was the quickest way to hear about something happening.

My father, Charlie, was the police chief and my mother, Renee, was the middle school art teacher. Everyone knew my parents and knew who I was in return. I was always Crazy Renee's daughter in middle school. In high school, my dad being the chief of police was basically equal to being the daughter of an archbishop or the Pope. Probably closer to the Pope.

I had always been overweight. I was active as a kid. Sports were big, and my dad always pushed me towards finding one I liked. Softball was played in the spring, and even then, I was still "overweight." No one ever really bullied me about it, or taunted me, but I knew it. I was _always_ self conscious and insecure. My pediatrician would remind me and my mother that I needed to lose weight every appointment.

When I got to middle school, I was Crazy Renee's daughter. My mother is not crazy, but she is eccentric. I mean, really, there's a reason she teaches art class. At home she's all about my chakras and the Feng Shuy of my bedroom and my star chart and horoscopes.

"Bella, sweetie, your room is too dark, too limiting to your emotions," she would say, and I would laugh and tell her my bedroom was fine.

That's probably when I gained most of the weight. Fifteen, twenty pounds overweight isn't really a big deal. But in my middle school days, I gained thirty pounds on top of that.

With the help of Alice, who had befriended me in third grade and never left my side, I lost the thirty pounds I had gained in middle school my senior year of high school. My freshman year at WWU, I stayed committed and lost the rest of the weight. I've never been so proud and happy with my life.

My phone twerps and I glance down. _Are you free this afternoon to help me with the biology assignment?_

Except that's a lie. Losing weight can help make you happier, but it sure as hell doesn't erase all your problems.

* * *

So, this one was mostly just a peek into Bella's life and mind. As a drabble, I probably wont' get very in depth in everything, and you slowly learn things as we go through the chapters. Anyway, hope it was still a good read!

Review? :)


	3. Chapter 3

I drum my fingers on the mahogany table in the library as I wait for Edward. Having managed to get off work early, I wasn't surprised he wasn't here yet.

I glance down at my watch to see the time. He still had one minute left before he was late.

"You work at the rec?"

I look up at Edward. He's smiling, his hair still a little damp from what I'm assuming is a shower – and try really hard not to picture him in a shower, naked, water dripping down, down… I fail. His jeans are hanging low on his hips, a black belt looped through the holes, holding them up. Topped with an incredibly soft looking grey sweater, he looks comfortable and lazy in a way that makes me want to just snuggle my head into the crook of his neck.

"Yes," I say awkwardly as he takes a seat behind me, and his soft cologne wafts across me. Holy shit, he smells good. Glancing up at the other people around us studying to help ignore how delectable he is, I ask, "You just get done with practice?" _Shit Bella, why'd you ask that? Now you're just going to picture him in tight baseball pants._

He nods, taking his bio book out of his backpack and setting it on the table softly beside mine. "We had our game yesterday, so it wasn't too hard of a practice."

Edward smiles at that as well, and I realize he must be one of those genuinely happy people. It makes my stomach flutter, but I'm not sure why.

"Well, should we get started?" I ask, propping my book open.

Edward Cullen is not stupid. Far from it. He's just got a more difficult time understanding the ideas. It's mostly the complex ideas that require serious memorization, like the differences between mitosis and meiosis. It's pretty easy to mix them up, and it's one of his tougher problems.

I also notice that he takes longer to read. He doesn't read out loud, either, when I ask what the question is. He'll just look down and then give me the gist of it.

I took these moments to surreptitiously glance at him. As he reads, his brows would furrow adorably, and an errant piece of his hair would fall over his forehead. He'd angrily push it away, as if it offended him.

Every time I see it fall over his face, I longed to move it out of the way for him. _God, Bella, really?_

He looks up and catches me staring at him. My cheeks flush with color and I go back to looking at my books.

"Sorry," he says quietly.

Confused, I look back up at him. "What? Why would you be sorry?"

Edward runs a hand though his hair in frustration, making the strands stand straight up through his fingers. "I read really slowly. I know it must be annoying."

I feel my brows furrow. "You're fine," I say, trying to get him to understand that I don't care if he reads slowly. "It doesn't bother me at all. Does it bother you?"

Sighing, he leans back in his chair, looking away from me. "Yeah. I have really bad dyslexia, and I've always had trouble with it. I've learned to cope with it and just take extra long to study, but with practice plus a full load, the stress makes it more difficult to tell the letters apart. It's why I have such a difficult time with mitosis and meiosis. I have to look at the descriptions because the letters get turned around on me and I can't tell one from the other. Stress makes it so much more difficult."

I sit there, quietly absorbing the information. This is the first time I've seen him so upset. Up until this moment, all he's shown me are his beautiful smiles, and I realize it must be difficult for him to let me in on his vulnerability.

Covering his hand with mine, I smile encouragingly for him. "Well, it's a good thing you asked me for help, then huh?"

His fingers squeeze mine and he gives me one of his happy, beautiful smiles. "Thank you, Bella."

I squeeze back, smiling. "You're welcome, Edward."

He looks down at our hands. "You know, we're basically holding hands here. Does this count as a first date now?"

My heart pounding in nervousness, I laugh and take my hand away from his, playfully pushing at his shoulder. Chuckling, he goes back to reading.

Honestly, I have no idea what I'm doing. All I know is he makes me nervous, and in a good way.

I think.


End file.
